


The Carriage Held But Just Ourselves

by inkedintoincognito



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Take Back the Falls, Weirdmageddon, Weirdmageddon Part 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 02:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6034549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkedintoincognito/pseuds/inkedintoincognito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stanley wasn't quick enough, and now Dipper is covered in the blood of his twin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Carriage Held But Just Ourselves

 

The tunnels were smooth, slick. The creature behind them rumbling the ground, he almost didn’t her out of the way in time, ripping her down a side tunnel, desperate to save her molecules- her _molecules._ She barely yanking him up with the grappling hook in time (he felt the wind from Bill’s hands).

_Go, go, go!_

There was, he’ll remember, a moment of peace. Mabel, creative genius, smashing the wall in front of them open, and he forgot to be afraid for a second, his awe and pride overcoming his fear.

He thought, for a moment, that they had made it. But then he looked down, and he heard Mabel let out a gasp and he knew she was ready to swing down and save everything, brave as she was, but then the ground was too far beneath him and his sister let out a cry that didn’t even come close to drowning out the _PEEK A BOO!_ that roared in his ears, his own shout lost in the noise.

He had never been more terrified than he was in that moment.

He felt his heart going into overdrive when he felt the fingers of a monster curl around him, when he felt his sister pressing into his side, her heart matching his.

They clasped hands inside the fist, gripping each other, he knew she was chanting Stanley’s name in her head, she knew he was chanting Stanford’s, if both of them- if all of them- worked together, then they would be saved. They _had_ to be saved. They were the good guys. Mabel and Stanley and Stanford- they were the _good guys_ and they would win.

The tunnels around them blurry, so much more than they had been, the gnawing thought that Bill had been playing with them by letting them get this far itching the back of his mind.

They flew through the pyramid, skin and lungs and teeth lining the walls, now, a twisted image sent out by Bill, Dipper knew, to terrify him and his sister.

He hated to admit that it was working, that the cackling triangle was really, really scaring him.

(He had a sick feeling that maybe they wouldn’t win, after all.)

Beside him, his sister squeezed his hand, and then dropped it and began to struggle. He followed her lead, but Bill was so strong, and they were so frustratingly _weak._

Still, they tried. Mabel actually managed to slip upwards a little bit, and the pride came back for a second and he wasn’t afraid, he was hopeful, but it faded as the seconds ticked by and neither made any more progress than that.

When finally, after an eternity of being crushed, they whirled into the room holding his great uncles prisoners, he felt like crying.

But he still had Mabel, so he didn’t.

_If he still had Mabel, he wouldn’t._

Bill was saying something. Dipper wishes he were braver. He knew Mabel was listening- he could tell because her heart was racing even faster than his now. They had never had true telepathy, but sometimes they could trick themselves into believing that they did. Now was almost one of those times, her worry for him as apparent as his worry for her.

He wished he could tell her that he loved her, out loud, in case they didn’t make it. He settled for screaming it in his mind.

His hearing kicked back in once he heard the word ‘kill’. Once the red light began flashing behind them.

Trapped in the fist of a demon deciding between his life and his sister’s, the proclamation: “I think I’m gonna kill one of them now, just for the heck of it!” having long since stopped his heart (while, beside him, he felt Mabel’s speed up, a feeling he would always remember, _always always always_ ) that horrible children’s rhyme coming back, yet again, his symbols and his sister’s flashing before him and for a second he had hope that maybe, even though it would be awful, it would land on the pine tree, and it looked like it was going to, it really did, the “YOU!” that had been present in his dreams ever since that awful day ringing out once again on his symbol-

but the snap of the fingers coming once the star shone down on them. He grabbed for her hand, but.

It happened in a second, in a millisecond, in a nanosecond, it shouldn’t be possible to happen that fast. Her heart, beating so quickly, so very quickly, suddenly stopped, suddenly

_he was going to vomit_

_outside_ of her, suddenly _on_ him, his sister’s space empty, Bill’s fist tightening to accommodate this new space, _oh, god, oh, god_

He was warm. So warm. So disgustingly warm, his sister’s blood on his face, on his neck, sticky and vibrantly red, and he screamed. The hand that he had been reaching for sat on Bill’s thumb, close enough for him to reach. Thoughts raced through his mind, too quick to catch, the only word he was managing to remember _Mabel._

He didn’t hear Stan’s desperate cry for Bill to wait. He was screaming too loudly.

And he didn’t stop. Distantly, he heard Bill laughing, he felt something _squish_ as the fist tightened around him even more and he wished, more than anything, that he had let Stanford tell Bill how to get out of Gravity Falls once he had the chance. He actually did vomit, now, something jabbing into his side and squelching against his chest.

Gasping, looking up at Bill, terrified and sick and _he couldn’t believe that this was happening._

It took longer than he would have liked for the rage to set it. But it did set in, and he began to scream anew, his voice filled with a rage he had never heard before, _“I’m going to kill you, Bill! I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!!”_ It was so very hard screaming around the lump in his throat. But he did it.

Not that Bill took him seriously.

Still, he continued to roar even as the fist around him unclenched, even as he fell to the floor, his head smashing into whatever lined the pyramid.

Everything should have gone black. But it wouldn’t.

For a moment, he lay there, screaming, withering. He couldn’t think, and then. He could. And he knew what he could do.

Behind him, he heard his great uncles yelling. He looked up at Bill. He was crying now. And why shouldn’t he? Mabel was gone.

At least, for now.

Bill was talking to Stanford, taunting him, and Dipper was, for a flash, livid at Stanford for just standing there sobbing instead of trying to get Mabel back.

The fury passes. He has a plan.

“Bill!” He shouted. The demon turned to him, looking down at the small boy, covered in blood and snot and tears, his eyes on fire.

“Pine Tree! Hey, I’ve always heard-“

“Shut up! Shut up, you yellow _fucker!_ ”

He got in trouble when he was six and shouted that at the TV with his mother. His father had claimed responsibility, but Dipper (and, a few seconds later, happily, Mabel,) was still sent to the corner. He hadn’t sworn since.

Now he screamed it, unashamed.

Bill blinked. “Careful, Pine Tree. You-“

“I said _shut up!_ ”

He flashed red. “Maybe I should kill you, too!” He dove at Dipper, roaring.

“Kill me, and you’ll never get the equation to get out of here!”

That stopped Bill. He turned back to yellow.

“You have the equation? I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true,” Dipper said. His voice cracked, the lump expanding with every second, no matter how hard he pushed it down. “I read it in the journal.”

Stanley was about to shout something, but Bill waved his arm and sent both of the older Pines crashing into the wall of their cell.

“What’re you thinking, kid?”

“Can you bring the dead back to life?”

He could swear Bill grinned. “If you have the equation, I can do anything.”

Dipper nodded. Hope blossomed in his chest. Hope, and fear.

“I don’t remember it. But it’s in my mind. You can get it-“

Bill rushed him.

“ _-if_ you bring my sister back!”

Bill laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I expected! Man, I shoulda killed her a long time ago! Gotten out of here much sooner!”

Dipper’s vision went red. But he knew what he could do. He began to walk backwards, Bill advancing towards him.

“She’ll come back. Healthy. Unaffected. She won’t remember dying, her body will be in perfect working order. And it will be _Mabel._ ”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“No tricks, Bill.”

“No tricks, Pine Tree!”

Dipper stopped moving backwards. “I want her healed first. And then you can go.”

“Now, that’s something-“

“Do it, or deal’s off.”

Bill floated around Dipper. He stayed still, staring forward at the throne. He felt the breeze behind him tickle his neck.

“You wouldn’t risk it, kid.”

“Try me.”

Bill’s _face?_ suddenly split open, a horrible red mouth yawning, teeth sharp and lined with muscle. “Okay, kid. You got yourself a deal!”

He hand shot out, meeting Dipper’s halfway.

There was a moment of silence. The world began to bleed gray, with the exception of a flash in front of him. And there was Mabel, in the center of the flash, arms of light reaching out, blinding him.

“I love you!” he screamed, and he saw her, radiant, looking at him, blinking.

She was confused.

All for the better.

“That is really her?” he asked. But Bill didn’t answer, rushing the boy instead.

 

Stanford weren’t sure how he did it. The timing, the risk, the careful planning even when covered in his other half.

But he watched as Dipper stepped over the edge of the pyramid.

He was disappointed that Dipper was so smart. He was disappointed that Dipper was so strong.

 

Bill was stuck in the mind of someone who, now, had no doors, no paths to get out. The space around them began to dissolve.

 

Mabel’s lungs hurt. She couldn’t breathe. Later, Stanford would tell her it was because they weren’t yet filled with air. She thinks it has something more to do with seeing her brother drop from the sky. Part of the floor below her disappeared.

She wanted to run over. But she, much to her relief, much to her dismay, blacked out.

 

Stanley, his voice hoarse from shouting, gripping the bars of the cell, knuckles white. Mabel was okay, Mabel was okay, but Dipper, Dipper was not, and Mabel wouldn’t be and it was so-

He let out another shout as Mabel fell over, a second later the ground beneath them beginning to disappear, and he knew it was over, relief and grief swirling inside him as he rushed his niece as soon as the bars fell away, wrapping her in his arms and burying her in his chest, pretending that he was going to do the same to Dipper in just a second.


End file.
